Adding Human Movement Models to Geospatial Planning Tools

Anna Winters of Akros Inc. in the U.S. will adapt an existing web-based mapping tool currently in use in several low-middle income countries that guides and maps the progress of health-related campaigns, to incorporate human movement and thereby improve campaign coverage. Although the existing tool maps populations at the level of individual households, it fails to incorporate spatial-temporal population changes caused by permanent relocation, seasonal migration, and short-term movements, which are more difficult to track. To address this, they will incorporate published human movement models and explore agent-based models, mathematical models, and cell-phone-data based models, along with survey data, to build their own model that can predict the location of individuals at specific times, and to identify people most at risk of being missed. This will enable better forward planning for predicted movements. They will evaluate their approach using the malaria Indoor Residual Spraying campaign in Luapula Province in Zambia.